


sometimes the days (they feel so long)

by shatteredhourglass



Series: Musicians!AU [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes-centric, Bucky Is Not A Groupie But He Sure Acts Like It, Feelings, James "Bucky" Barnes & Kate Bishop Friendship, Kate Enables Bucky's Crush, M/M, Mostly From Afar, Musician Bucky Barnes, Musician Clint Barton, Musicians, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Third Person, Prequel, Sam Appears For Approximately Two Seconds I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 11:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20375851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: “You serious? They’re nearly as big as you, man,” the guy - Sam? - says. “You’ve never heard of Hawkeye and the Black Widow?”“No,” Bucky answers, a little petulantly. He doesn’t pay any attention to any of the bands he’s supposed to know. Bucky is- he’s not a snob exactly but he knows what he likes listening to and it’s mostly stuff from the nineties. Most of the musicians he’s met through Steve are heartbroken when he says he hasn’t listened to their stuff.





	sometimes the days (they feel so long)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a prequel to falling through the night; you can read them in either order, I don't think it matters. This is set about than a year back from that, though, for context. I'm working my way up to a sequel where Clint figures out who Bucky is.

“Bucky, you have to show up for _some_ press pictures,” Steve says, crosses his arms over his chest.

It’s an exasperated plea at this point, and Bucky hopes that the expression on his face communicates _exactly_ how much he is not agreeing to that idea. He wonders when Steve’s going to call it quits and give up. It’s very much an unstoppable force against an immovable object, though, because they’re both stubborn bastards and neither of them are willing to stand down.

_Best friends since childhood, James Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and the music scene,_ a magazine article had said once, like it was something sweet. It’s just that Bucky’s too unsociable and prickly to befriend anyone else now, and Steve’s too stubborn to let him be alone for the rest of his life. The manager position helps, he guesses.

“What about the interview in an hour? Come on, Buck,” Steve pleads. “You can wear the mask.”

“I don’t want to wear the mask,” Bucky grumbles. “I don’t want to do any of it. Can’t they all just fuck off and leave me alone?”

“This is what _happens_ when you’re famous,” Steve says without an ounce of sympathy in his voice. “Buck, I’m already fending them off as much as I can, but- where are you going?”

“Away,” Bucky says shortly.

Steve looks like he’s going to argue, but Bucky’s already peeling off his stage vest. It’s a struggle to get off, and once again he laments the choice of costume as he flings it aside. Really, he should’ve gone into country music so he could wear flannel shirts all day long. Steve _definitely_ won’t let him get away with that, though, and neither will the costume department.

He takes a step back and grabs a hoodie at random, leaving the leather glove on his left hand. Ignores the warning look on Steve’s face as he flees the room, weaves around the crowds until he’s outside in the fresh air.

It’s not exactly a _Steve_ problem as such, but he doesn’t seem to understand that it gets too much for Bucky sometimes. It’s _easy_ for Steve - he’s the golden child, all goodness and press smiles and performance. Bucky can’t do that because he wears his trauma on his sleeve, lets it tear out into the world via his music so he can finally have some goddamn peace in the confines of his own head.

It’s stress release, at its most basic form, and he doesn’t know how he became an international superstar and he doesn’t really _want_ to know.

It’s. It’s a lot, sometimes. Most of the time.

Bucky finds himself at the stage he’d been performing on earlier. There’s another band setting up now, and he leans back against a pillar and takes in the quiet, watches it unfold. No one can see him standing there in the shadows - the lighting is exceptionally bad at this venue, except for where there’s a redhead standing onstage, testing a piano that’s been painted with UV lights. She plays a few notes and then waves one of the sound guys over.

Bucky stays where he is until people start filtering in. There’s a fair crowd and Bucky nudges a security guard in grey and red who he’s spoken to before, gestures towards the stage. “Who’re these guys?”

“You serious? They’re nearly as big as you, man,” the guy - Sam? - says. “You’ve never heard of Hawkeye and the Black Widow?”

“No,” Bucky answers, a little petulantly. He doesn’t pay any attention to any of the bands he’s supposed to know. Bucky is- he’s not a snob _exactly_ but he knows what he likes listening to and it’s mostly stuff from the nineties. Most of the musicians he’s met through Steve are heartbroken when he says he hasn’t listened to their stuff.

Sam snorts and moves to shoo a kid off of standing on the railing and Bucky notices they’re starting to set off. The stage lights click off a second later and Bucky’s standing in darkness, the only glow from the excess of phones. People are texting during a show? _Christ_, that’s insulting. Do people do that when he's up there too? It can't be that great if people are on their phones.

He’s not expecting anything interesting.

That’s a fatal mistake on his part.

The spotlight shows up on the redhead first, and Bucky can see the appeal. She’s got a nice voice, husky and an inflection on some of the words that makes Bucky guess that she’s not actually American - Russian, maybe. The black jumpsuit is an interesting design- it reminds him of his own stage outfit vaguely, and it’s a nice reminder that other people’s costumes suck to wear too.

It’s pleasant enough, the piano is perfectly played, and it’s _okay_ but there’s a _lot_ of people and Bucky turns around to plot a course to the closest exit.

Of course, that’s when the guitar starts.

It’s _gorgeous_, the kind of raw sound that feels like it’s ripping right through his soul and Bucky stops in his tracks, ears pricking.

Bucky turns back to see what is possibly the hottest man on earth.

The guy leans forward to say something into the microphone and Bucky doesn’t even hear it at first with the way he gets caught up looking. It’s all red lips and half-lidded eyes, the irises some light colour that Bucky can’t identify from this far away. He’s in a sleeveless vest, gloriously punk rock and streaked with glaring purple that stands out amongst the black tattoos and leather. The mohawk is damp with sweat, tuned down to a dark gold and Bucky’s fucking _appalled_ at how attractive it is.

The redhead starts singing again and the guy onstage swings around and starts playing again, fingers deft and precise, and_Jesus Christ._

Bucky doesn’t flee.

Bucky hasn’t seen a live show that wasn’t his own for years, and maybe that’s _part_ of it, but most of it is that he just can’t take his eyes off the blond onstage. Hawkeye. Holy _shit_. It feels like seconds and days pass all at once as he stares, and then they’re saying goodnight to the crowd and he realizes he’s somehow ended up right next to the stage.

His brain keeps replaying the moment Hawkeye got right up close, heavy boots and tattoos, and Bucky thinks, _shit, I need more,_ doesn’t know what the insistent churn in his gut means. It keeps plaguing him the whole way out of the performance area and right up until he stops in front of the stacks of shirts and CDs on show. Bucky pushes back his sweaty hair from his face and tries to breathe, makes the mistake of looking at the stuff on sale.

Huh.

“Where’s the Hawkeye merch?”

The guy at the table looks at him incredulously, like he thinks Bucky is joking or something. Bucky just stares him down until the man glances away and snorts. Whatever the joke is, Bucky doesn’t get it.

He’s still flying high from the energy he’d seen onstage, can feel the bass in his bones that way it gets when the music’s really good. When he blinks he can still see the guy onstage shredding on the guitar like it’s keeping him alive, and he needs to know _more_.

The merch guy rummages in a box by his feet and eventually pulls out a roll of stickers with a purple chevron on them. He holds them up and Bucky feels his brow crease, looks up at all the spiders and red hourglasses and leather jumpsuits. There’s posters, some of them with the Black Widow staring straight at the audience in full view and Hawkeye there, but he’s facing away from the camera and all that’s really visible is his absurd biceps and the gold of his hair.

“This is dumb,” Bucky says, his mouth operating without express permission from his brain.

The guy shrugs. “That’s show business, buddy. People like the Widow.”

Bucky doesn’t get it.

Why would anyone be looking at the Widow when _he’s_ up there?

“Where _were_ you?”

It doesn’t sound that accusing, not when Steve’s looking at him with shock in his eyes. Probably doesn’t know what to do with Bucky grinning at him. Bucky doesn’t know what he looks like, but he laughs giddily, slides down onto the couch with boneless knees. He’s soaking in his own sweat and it’s disgusting, __he’s __disgusting, but the thrill is still burning hot in his veins.

Steve passes over a bottle of water and Bucky nearly dumps it over his head with excitement. It probably wouldn’t cool him off anyway.

“He was _amazing,_” Bucky tells him, and he sounds breathless even to his own ears. “Shit, Steve, it was fuckin’ incredible.”

“Did you… hook up with someone?”

Steve’s dubious tone is probably warranted but Bucky musters up a grimace at him anyway. Like he’s had casual sex at _all_ since he started getting more popular. It’s too hard, and not in the funny dick joke way. His eyeliner’s probably smeared to hell too. _Hot mess_ doesn’t really cover it. It’s quite possible that this was better than sex, though.

“No, no _fondue_, Rogers,” he retorts, a little mean so he'll drop it. Steve grimaces at the reference and rubs his hand over his forehead like Bucky’s giving him a migraine. He probably is. Steve’s not a fan of being reminded of how embarrassing he was during the Peggy Debacle. It doesn't stop him from antagonizing Bucky though.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you look this happy since…”

Steve doesn’t finish the sentence, a rueful little smile on his lips. There’s that distant look in his eyes that he gets when he’s thinking about the old days. Bucky usually _hates_ it, but even Steve’s reminiscing can’t break through the walls of energy surrounding him.

He needs to know _more_. Steve’s nosy as hell, though, so he’s got an advantage there. He leans forward in his seat and Steve snaps out of it, eyes tracking back to Bucky’s face instead of a spot over his shoulder. They need to talk about that sometime - not today, but sometime. When they’re not furiously repressing their feelings.

“You know anything about Hawkeye?”

“Hawkeye? He’s with the Black Widow, isn’t he?”

Bucky sighs. “Yes.”

“I’ve met Natasha - Black Widow - a few times,” Steve supplies, sits down across from him and regards Bucky curiously. “She’s nice.”

“Yes,” Bucky repeats a little impatiently, “but what about _him?”_

Steve’s brow creases. “Actually, I don’t know a lot about him. That’s weird. I think I have some Black Widow shirts somewhere because their manager gave them to me. What’s this about, Buck?”

“Nevermind,” Bucky says with a note of resignation. He’s going to have to look elsewhere.

He _should _technically just go back to his normal life and write it off as a weird fluke, but he’s not sure he _can_. It feels like the world’s been knocked off of its axis. There’s this bone-deep desire to find out _more_, to learn about this strikingly gorgeous man and figure out why Bucky is so drawn to the energy he radiates.

He spends weeks rummaging around in every hole-in-the-wall music place he can think of in Brooklyn.

It’s _exhausting_; he wears a hood over his head and sunglasses but some people are obsessed enough that they recognize the tattoos on his body. If that happens he’s forced to sit through long minutes of someone telling him their favourite song and asking him for photos. He says no every time, and it’s funny that they think he can’t see them taking one anyway. Sometimes they deign to scold him for his new album and tell him they liked the old stuff better.

God, if Steve wouldn’t kill him, he’d tell them to fuck off.

Eventually he ends up in a compact store in a part of Bedford-Stuyvesant he’s never been before, filled with dust and the smell of instant ramen where the girl at the counter is eating. He drifts up and down the cramped shelves, finds his own stuff and grimaces at it. God, it looks even edgier from an outside perspective, what were the designers _thinking?_

Bucky’s so busy contemplating his own life choices that he nearly walks into the counter. The girl is still paying him no heed whatsoever, and he thanks whatever god is out there for the small mercy. She’s watching something on the computer screen, so he casts his gaze up to the wall behind her. There are a few polaroids there, random things like the new Misa Kitara and a dog with only one eye.

And then there’s one that makes Bucky pause.

It’s the guy, it’s Hawkeye - it has to be, Bucky’s never seen anyone else look that good in purple. It’s a casual picture, he’s got aviators tucked into his violet henley and an arm wrapped around the girl in front of him. They’ve both got bandaids stuck all over their faces and they’re grinning at the camera. Hawkeye’s smile is - it’s a little lopsided and boyish, nothing like the intimidating figure on stage, and Bucky thinks _cute_ before he can stop himself.

“You okay, buddy?”

He flinches, looks back at the girl - _Kate,_ her nametag states, in Comic Sans, which is an interesting choice - who’s now tossing her cup in the trash. There’s silence for a minute as he braces himself for the usual barrage of questions, but she just looks him over and then glances behind herself to see what he was looking at.

“Don’t tell me you’re here for my dog,” she groans, rubs at her forehead. “Didn’t we agree the dog and the apartment building was off-limits last month?”

“What?” Bucky doesn’t know what apartments have to do with anything. “No, I was looking at- you’ve met Hawkeye?”

She snorts, relaxes into her chair and kicks her feet up on the counter. Her toenails are purple. “Clint? I live in his apartment.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. “You’re-”

“His unpaid dogsitter, yeah,” Kate says thoughtfully. Not a girlfriend, then. She looks a little young for that anyway - come to think of it, she looks like a teenager, why is she running a store? Then she fixes him with a stare that could rival Steve’s, a slightly judgemental curl of her lips. “You’re not one of those Black Widow groupies, are you?”

“God no,” Bucky blurts out, holding his hands up defensively.

It’s a little more vehement than he means for it to be, but she seems pleased by it. The relief is short-lived, however, when she looks back at the photograph and then back at Bucky contemplatively. Bucky stays exactly where he is, feeling a little frozen by the realization that this is a person who actually __knows __Hawkeye. He doesn’t know what that expression on her face means and he’s not sure he wants to.

“You like _him?”_

Bucky doesn’t answer, feels the anxiety bubble up in his throat. This is stupid. He should just go back to his place and hide for approximately five hundred years, completely forget about Clint Barton and his weird draw. Kate smiles, though, and he realizes he’s answered the question even without saying anything, because without the mask his feelings are written all over his face.

“What did you come in here looking for?”

Well, he’s already made an embarrassment of himself. “Why isn’t there anything about him? He plays most of the instruments, he’s credited for the lyrics and the stage setup and _everything_. And there’s nothing.”

“Oh,” Kate says, taps her fingernails against her knee. “You noticed the Hawkeye Principle.”

“The- the what?”

“No matter what he does, the public doesn’t notice him. The _Hawkeye_ in _Hawkeye and the Black Widow_ is silent. I’m pretty sure they called him a ‘touring guitarist’ in the latest Alt Press article.”

Bucky contemplates that for a second. He honestly can’t fathom why anyone who’s seen Hawkeye onstage would even _notice_ his companion. It seems strange that he’s in the minority there. Surely everyone else who’s been to a live show saw what he saw. Kate leans in closer to him, a glint in her eye that’s a little nerve-wracking.

“I have some stuff in the back if you want it,” she says. “It’ll cost you, though.”

“How much?”

She laughs, slips off of her chair and disappears into the backroom. When she comes back she’s carrying a cardboard box filled to the brim with CDs. It gets set down on the counter with a thunk and she slides them over to his side, puts her hands on her hips. Bucky eyes it off, sees some truly awful handwriting on the disc on top. God, that’s _his_. Embarrassingly, he’s fairly sure he’d pay an extraordinarily large amount of cash for a chance at this.

Kate grins and it reminds him of a shark. Teenagers are terrifying. “Not money. Give me your phone number, I want to know what you think of this stuff once you’re done.”

“...are you going to share it?”

“No, Mister Winter Soldier, I’m not going to sic the fangirls on you,” Kate says with a snort. “I’m more interested in your crush on my boy. No one listens to your music here anyway.”

“Oh, thank god,” Bucky mutters, quietly relieved. The iPhone’s in his pocket in a solid black case and it takes him a minute to remember what the passcode is. He only ever uses his phone for Steve, but it’s not like he can’t branch out just this once. If it gets to be too much he can always block her - it’s not like she’ll be able to steal the box back once he’s squirreled it away. “You- you’re not going to tell him about this, right?”

“No, dude,” Kate answers with amusement.

He gives her the number.

Bucky spends the next week listening to all the official _Hawkeye and the Black Widow_ albums. There’s only two official albums and an EP, but it’s all good stuff, some mix of haunting and classic punk rock. He plays them all through once and then presses repeat, sits with his face close to the speaker. First he pays close attention to the guitar, then he does it again and strains his ears to separate the main vocals from the backing.

Some of the CDs Kate sends him are instrumental; he checks the Wikipedia and without the piano as well, the music is entirely Hawkeye.

He loves it.

It’s _raw_ like this, and while the finished product is good, there’s something indescribably mesmerizing about the way it sounds without the Black Widow. He may or may not forget to eat for eight hours while he’s sitting there contemplating it all. (It’s not an uncommon thing for Bucky to do, but usually it’s a depressive slump or trauma rearing its head, not a blond musician.)

_this is fucking great,_ he texts Kate.

_rite? :D_ she sends back. _u listened to all of it yet?_

_not quite._ He’s got a tour to get ready for next fortnight that he can’t put off any longer, so he packs the box under his bed with a mournful look. He’ll get there.

Then Steve calls him up and says he’s working on something with a colleague and can’t make their weekly pizza night. This isn’t particularly of interest to Bucky - it’s just an excuse for Steve to nag him and for him to nag right back - right up until Steve says “_oh, I got free tickets to Hawkeye and the Black Widow, did you want them? I’m not going to be able to use them._”

Bucky says _yes_ immediately, because it’d be a waste for no one to use the tickets when they’re there. He and Steve grew up poor and on a _waste-not_ mindset and that’s carried into their adult life even though they profit nicely now.

It’s not at all because his heart starts beating a little faster at the thought of seeing Hawkeye on stage again.

It’s just as intoxicating as the first time.

He shows up in a hood to hide his identity and successfully manages to avoid any fans in the throng of teens and adults clamoring for the Black Widow. Her name is Natasha, according to the girl screaming next to him, and Bucky doesn’t really care but he still watches as she walks across the stage and gives the crowd an elegant wave, like she's some sort of monarch instead of a musician.

Then Hawkeye appears in a shower of sparks - why does he only appear _after_ the Black Widow? - with his guitar in hand and Bucky loses track of himself right up until he’s standing in line for signings.

Signing for _Hawkeye._

Oh, good fucking lord, what is he _doing?_

The person in front of him stalks off and Bucky freezes, the air catching in his lungs. It’s his turn. He can’t do this. He _won’t_ do this, he’s an idiot for even coming here. What’s the thing people say about never meeting your idols? Not that he idolizes the man, really, he’s just inexplicably attracted to his stage persona.

Bucky’s planning to just stay there long enough that he turns to concrete, just becomes a fucking statue so he never has to face anyone ever again. He nearly _succeeds_, too, except someone bumps him from behind and he’s so off-guard that he stumbles forward a few steps.

He freezes again as he sees who he’s directly in front of.

“Hi,” Clint Barton greets, and close-up Bucky can see the yellow-green bruising up his jaw, the butterfly stitches on his forehead. He looks _tired_, a little resigned like he’s waiting for Bucky to abuse him like the people before him had done. The leather’s been switched out for a ragged grey henley that’s barely hanging onto his shoulders, and _huh_.

“You got something for me to sign?”

His eyes are blue, as it turns out.

“Uh,” Bucky says, because all brain function has abruptly ground to a halt. That's. He's.

Clint gives him a wry smile, but there’s a sad sort of acceptance in it when he leans back in his chair. “Here for Nat? She’ll be back in a minute, I won’t make you move on. It’s cool, dude.”

_No. Fuck Natasha,_ Bucky thinks vehemently, but he can’t say that out loud. It’s his bandmate, after all, and from the way they interact onstage they’re close, maybe as close as he and Steve are. Clint starts scratching at the swirls of ink on his collarbone and he looks lost in thought - maybe just _lost_ in general - and that’s what gets him speaking.

“I liked the new solo,” he blurts out. “It was. Changing to a higher key worked, it was really nice. You did a good job.”

Clint looks off-balance for a second, the bewilderment evident in his eyes, and then he positively _beams_ at Bucky. It’s like the fucking sun has come out; it’s blindingly bright, warm in a way that makes Bucky feel it in his stomach.

Clint Barton comes to life in front of him, and he’s talking about chord progressions and other things Bucky can’t really fathom because he’s too busy smiling back. It’s not the same as seeing Hawkeye - it’s entirely different, more the opposite, because Hawkeye has a raw violent energy. Clint’s tired, kind of sarcastic in a way that’s so very _human_ Bucky can’t quite line him up with the image in his own head.

It occurs to him, then, that Clint Barton is _just a guy,_ underneath the Hawkeye persona.

Kind of like Bucky himself, really.

Clint signs his ticket and doodles a little stick figure waving at him and it’s not at all what Bucky had expected, but it's possible that it was _better_. He’s left a little shellshocked and a lot weirded out, because he’d __never __wanted to talk to Hawkeye but he _wants_ to talk to Clint Barton. It’s not the obsessive draw that brought him to this point, it’s just something that starts in his toes and settles warm in his chest.

“I’ll see you around,” Clint says as Bucky’s leaving, and Bucky says “yeah” because he’s already thinking about booking tickets for the next show.

When he gets home he drags out the box from under his bed and grabs an unmarked disc at random. Fuck the tour.

He slaps it into the player with a little less care than he should and then plants his ass down on the carpet. Bucky hasn’t showered, he hasn’t texted Steve, all he’s done is think about how he’s going to spend a hundred dollars just to talk to the man for five minutes and make him smile.

There’s no complicated electric guitar riffs on this CD.

For a minute Bucky thinks it might be blank and then he hears a crackle in the background. There’s muttering for a second, too muted to hear, and then a few notes sing out. It’s acoustic, completely different from what Bucky’s grown accustomed to hearing, just the guitar and nothing else. He thinks he recognizes the song vaguely from somewhere, but it’s not _Hawkeye and the Black Widow._

_“People don’t know much, need a whiskey crutch,”_ and as his voice fills the room, a little raspy and hoarse like he’s just woken up, Bucky’s breath catches in his lungs.

He realizes too late that this isn’t Hawkeye, this is Clint Barton.

It feels private, painfully so when Clint’s voice cracks on the _“I don't wanna be like them”_ and he’s _not_, he’s not like anyone else Bucky’s ever met and Bucky has _no clue_ what he’s supposed to do other than go to every single show and every meet and greet he can get onto.

And not for his weird attraction to Hawkeye, for Clint Barton, of all things.

There’s a friendly woof and a crash on the tape and the music stops abruptly.

_“Katie, what the fuck,”_ Clint’s voice says and Bucky flinches.

_“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Clint,”_ Kate retorts and then there’s an alarming crash and the recording shuts off.

He gives that CD back to Kate the next day, ignoring the knowing look she gives him.

Then he texts Steve.

_is there any way you can get me on tour with h&tbw?_

**Author's Note:**

> Winterhawk Bingo Square: Band!AU
> 
> The song Clint is covering is called Amsterdam and it's by Nothing But Thieves - I recently made a Clint playlist and this is one of the tunes on it. I just Really Like the idea of an acoustic version and I spent far too long daydreaming about Jeremy Renner singing it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] sometimes the days (they feel so long)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967146) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)


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